A 'Gove Shake Up'

It seems Michael Gove is never far away from the headlines these days.  ‘These days’ could justifiably be replaced with weeks or even months.  Although I don’t personally appreciate the manner in which he tampers with our education system it must be said the ‘shake up’ that he instigates is not always necessarily bad; often it can be catastrophic, granted, but it’s not always bad.

When we went down to the Olympic Park and saw what an atmosphere the volunteers were able to create it certainly opened my eyes.  When the Police attend large events, the atmosphere within the ranks is at best described as subdued, but realistically borders on ‘numbing’.   Officers often don’t want to be there for a whole variety of reasons; having their leave cancelled, being in company with other colleagues they would rather not, having no interest whatsoever with the event they are attending, having little to do at the event (literally being bored) – there can be many reasons.  But, all said and done, at least they are being paid for their attendance, and paid rather well.  And yet, at the Olympics there were all these volunteers, giving up not just their time at the event, but also to do the required training pre-event, and their contribution to the Games was outstanding.

It seems that we are in times where the rock solid jobs, where people so frequently become institutionalised in their comfort of knowing they will never lose their job are looking over their shoulder.  Nurses, Police, Teachers, Dentists even Doctors (who would have imagined our Doctors would strike over their pensions) – everyone needs to be on their toes.  

Being a Driving Instructor or a Trainer of Driving Instructors would equally focus your mind these last few years.  When I took my training 5 years ago, the quality of training that I received was quite appalling.  I (the customer) was having to wait long periods of time for my training to fit into the schedule of the training provider (not the other way round), some training was done with 2 of us in the car (rather than 1:1), the syllabus of training was based around the tests only (no interest in providing training for life after qualifying), the Trainer had an air of complacency that was truly shocking.  But, in fairness to him, 5 years ago, it would be understandable why he was complacent.  There were many Trainee Driving Instructors coming into the industry – he and his organisation had the attitude of ‘put up’ or get lost, we have other customers waiting.  How times change though.  The industry has nose-dived since (I’ll pop up some figures shortly in another blog), his organisation went into administration, another national driving school also went into administration and things do not look so rosy.      

However you want to describe the reason(s) why these exam results just out don’t look so good, suddenly, the teaching world starts looking inwards a bit more.  The long stretch of years where exam results were improving year on year has ended, and because the stats show a negative this year, the spotlight goes on the schools.  The education world has been perfectly willing to hide behind the year on year increase in exam stats with not a care for how well the pupil can survive in employment.  Suddenly their comfort shield has been removed, they are exposed.  That culture of complacency is now going to bite.  

Before we left the area we lived last year, our Dentist had been through a period of time where she was formally requesting feedback from her customers and had to be seen to be working on that feedback – not ‘if she fancied it’ or ‘would she be kind enough to’.  The difference in the service provided was remarkable. 

If you find yourself really not enjoying your driving lessons, move on.  As a paying customer, you would do well to discover a provider that meets your needs, exactly, and then delivers on that.  Anything less......ditch him/her.  As banks have discovered over the recent years, the only loyalty demonstrated by customers will be from the older generation that have that mis-placed sense firmly ingrained in them – they will represent a small % of their customer base I suspect.

This culture of complacency can be seen in some DSA examiners.  The manner in which they conduct themselves in front of Learners and Driving Instructors sometimes leaves much to be desired.  As with the other occupations mentioned above, when there is a lack of alternative providers, then that complacency can breed fast within the ranks.  Who knows, perhaps one day the Government will realise how unhealthy this current set up is, and do a ‘Gove shake up’ that will loosen this DSA stranglehold.